The catheters used in the human body, in particular vascular catheters for angioplasty and stenting need support to be moved axially (pushability) and to rotate (torquability) as well as requiring flexibility to move up the arterial tree and the veins for this reason catheters are usually made of a metal core covered in plastic material.
The current standard core of catheters is composed of a mesh lamina or, to give maximum flexibility, of a coil core. In both cases the catheter has a predefined diameter with no possibility of adaptability to possible, even minimal, variations of diameter required.
This impossibility of adapting in shape in practice constitutes a significant limitation to the applications of said catheter.